Wednesday, September 15, 2010

I went to Skyros to teach; knowing full well - because it has happened every single time in the past 18 years I have been going - that I was really going there to learn. There are just too many goodies to share in one post - cuz I promised myself to keep them short - so the teachings will appear gradually over the next months or years. Briefly here, this post then - - - I really learned how to communicate the inner experience of T'ai Chi in such a way that absolute beginners can get an experience of what it feels like to be in such a state of complete allowing.

Try this. Yessir - go ahead and touch your coffee cup - or anything you normally touch in a utilitarian manner during the day - in the same way that you touch your lover, in the same way that you caress your baby, or your cat, or anything you love.
We all know how to do this; we all know how to sensitize our fingers at will from 'coffee cup' mode to 'loved object' mode. You know how to sensitize your fingers and how to de-sensitize them depending on what it is you are touching. You don't even need to feel the feelings of tenderness or love. Just do it. Go ahead and stroke that cup or the steering wheel or the broom, or the laundry, with a 'loving' touch. Can you feel it? What happens? How do you do it? Welllll I'll bet you do it slowly---- with a lot more presence ---- paying attention ------with a softening.

Doesn't it feel gooood? Do you feel tingly and warm and melty inside? OK, now try doing T'ai Chi that way - with love-sensitive fingertips. Hey! Why stop there? Make your entire hand into fingertips! Make your arm, your torso, head, legs, ---- make that huge largest organ of your body (Skin, the skin I am talking of) into fingertips of sensitive touch. Yeah? See what that does for your T'ai Chi.

How to do it? How to transfer fingertip sensitivity to the entire body? That is exactly what the principles of T'ai Chi are all about: move slowly, breath slowly and deeply, relax, allow, become heavy, soften the gaze, extend the body open like a flower, soften, soften, soften

More to come.

I really should charge for this stuff.

You won't find it with many other T'ai Chi teachers. Fine to focus on healing or martial arts or circulating Chi; but the absolute highest purpose of T'ai Chi is to feel your way into bliss. Once you experience that, all the other reasons for doing T'ai Chi or any other exercise seem a bit like using a jet plane to go down the driveway to check the mailbox.

If you are going to use a jet plane, may as well have fun and make it a real trip!